cats

In November 1991… … in Victoria, Australia’s first compulsory cat registration system was introduced into Parliament. ‘The Companion Animals Bill’ had been long desired by animal welfare groups in the state, as they had a theory that with cat registration laws passed, ‘irresponsible’ cat ownership would be reduced and the state’s… cat –> pound = dead… […]

This Mamma cat and her four babies have been brought into the Darebin pound in Victoria. The babies are just 4 weeks old and unweaned. They need their mum to feed them and provide them her antibodies through her milk. They need her care and comfort so the stress of being impounded doesn’t kill […]

In 2010, Wyndham Council’s cat control laws expired after 10 years. Made as an addition to the City’s compulsory cat registration, the laws prohibited cats being off their owners’ property from 10pm and 6am and banned them from public areas. In the decade that the curfew laws were in place, not a single fine was […]

Yarra Ranges Council (Victoria) has ruled that cats will have to be kept on private properties at all times… Residents have accused Yarra Ranges Council of not consulting properly with the community after a 24-hour cat curfew was approved for the region last week. The curfew, which means residents have to contain their cat […]

Cat laws in various forms are often purported as the secret to managing skyrocketing shelter populations. If only all the ‘irresponsible’ cat owners identified and desexed their cats … the thinking goes … we wouldn’t need shelters. With so many cities in Australia now passing cat laws, why aren’t more cities also boasting that […]

Greater Dandenong has a problem. Despite passing compulsory microchipping and registration laws… Greater Dandenong senior animal management officer Richard Asquith said about 75 per cent of cats impounded by council were feral. “It’s a constant challenge to try to reverse that trend, and they get put to sleep because we can’t put them in any […]

‘Cat laws’ in various forms are often purported as the secret to managing skyrocketing shelter populations. If only all the ‘irresponsible’ cat owners identified and desexed their cats … the thinking goes … we wouldn’t need shelters. Cat laws are generally designed to do three things; 1. Increase rates of desexing, so there are less […]

I am loving a new series of podcasts called ‘Human Animal Science’ which are animal welfare’y, science’y and Australian based. It is hosted by Tim Adams and Mia Cobb, and if you’re a regular reader of this blog, the show will almost certainly give you a thrill too! Some of the show’s other topics […]

The ACT RSPCA has long claimed that their cats laws are a ‘success’ wanting them introduced across the ACT, despite ten years of them making very little difference to the number of cat and kitten intakes and their overall stats remaining pretty much static. It seems there is a ‘sweet spot’ between 2,000 and […]

The biggest failure of the cat laws that have been rolled out across WA, is that they encourage and increase the impoundment and killing of cats, while claiming to reduce the impoundment and killing of cats. When the story we tell the community is that there is only two types of cats – those […]